Re: CONLANG Digest - 21 Feb 2004 to 22 Feb 2004 (#2004-52)

Andreas Johansson wrote:

>PS If I've got it right, all ergative languages are really split-ergative,
but
>plenty of accusative languages have only the faintest traces of ergativity
>(like the -ee suffix in English). If so, it would seem to suggest that
>accusativity, for some reason, is the "default" for human language, yes?
------
In _Ergativity_ (1994) Dixon disagrees with you here.  He states outright
that there are many ergative languages which do not show any splits
(although he doesn't appear to list any examples).  As I believe someone
else noted, I don't think Basque utilizes any accusative patterning at all
or any antipassive alternative patterning.  Dixon himself is the world's
leading expert on Australian languages, so presumably he makes this claim
based on his knowledge of those languages.  As for accusativity being
the "default" for human language, Dixon would disagree here as well.
Chapter 1 of his book makes his position quite clear.  He believes the
underlying (what I would call the cognitive-level) "default" for human
language is a 3-way distinction between S (intransitive subject), A
(transitive subject), and O (transitive object), to which languages then
morpho-syntactically map either by grouping S with A distinct from O
(accusative pattern) or by grouping S with O distinct from A (ergative
pattern).  Given the evidence that languages switch from one pattern to the
other over time (e.g., the loss of Proto-IE ergativity in its present-day
daughter languages except Armenian, then seeing it re-arise in modern
Hindi), it seems to me difficult to say which is more "natural" or
more "primitive."  (I believe some of the more obscure Uralic languages
show ergativity as well.)

--John Quijada